"I think people should be allowed to be who they are when they post on social networks without fear that it will come back to haunt them. People can be very professional but still have a bit of a wild streak in their personal life. That has been true for the hundreds of years before things became so ""public"" so why not now. However, the thing is, I promote the use of social media (prefer the term professional media) for pre-employment processes. So it begs the questions, can we look at ""the right"" social media and leave the other stuff alone, or does social media open up Pandora's box? I wrote a short blog on Toolbox that discusses this a bit further: http://hr.toolbox.com/blogs/musing-on-preemployment-screening/would-facebook-care-if-i-burned-down-a-garage-54399"